Page 93 of Little Wing
Mainland
It was a normal Friday morning at the Chaffinch Café – in that it was as normal as ever. There were the usual struggles to wriggle incompliant hands into the blue latex hygiene gloves, the customary bickering over who was going to arrange the pastries and who was going to give the tables a wipe-over, as well as the standard inadvertent clumsiness that precluded anything being done speedily. A glass had been broken already. The coffee machine had been polished and thumped but was finally up and running. A sudden discovery that there were no bananas had led to only momentary panic. A lazy wasp threatened to keep everyone hostage. In its own peculiar way, however, an unconventional efficiency played out and the café opened punctually at nine o’clock.
Timing her arrival with the slim breather between workers grabbing breakfast to go and school-run mums commandeering every table, Nell slipped in to cheers and tears, bear hugs and kisses.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
‘Broke a glass,’ said Libby.
‘Killer wasp,’ whispered Rachel.
‘Coffee machine keeps almost dying,’ said AJ.
‘Bananarama drama,’ said Danny.
‘Did you miss me?’ Nell laughed.
Sanjay positioned his finger and thumb an inch apart. Alex said so-so but kept his arms wrapped around Nell’s waist. Danny said is the Pope a Catholic. And Debbie said yes. Yes, said Debbie coming through from the kitchen and giving Nell a bowl of salad. Yes, we missed you. Welcome home.
‘I found her,’ Nell whispered to Debbie. ‘I found her.’
Later, after closing, once everywhere was wiped, swept and scrubbed, Nell and Debbie sat at one of the tables with coffee and a plate loaded with broken cookies and the nub ends of cake.
‘And this little cottage – it’s a holiday rental?’
‘Yes,’ said Nell.
Debbie went to the back to fetch her bag and brought out her laptop, scurrying her fingers over the keyboard. ‘Show me,’ she said, swivelling the screen towards Nell. ‘Which one is it?’
‘I didn’t think of doing this,’ Nell marvelled, scanning through properties. ‘I was kicking myself for not taking my camera that day.’
‘Now you can visit from the comfort of your living room,’ said Debbie. ‘No need to bugger off to the Outer WhereTheFucks for days on end.’
Nell searched and found the little white cottage. It was called Am Bothan Geal – the White Cottage.
‘Here.’
They clicked through the pictures, lingering and enlarging, Nell annotating each room in turn, elaborating on what the view was truly like and all the while recounting what she’d seen, what she’d learned, who she’d met, how she’d felt. Debbie clicked backwards and forwards, marvelling.
‘There.’ Nell pointed. ‘You can just see the studio at the very edge of this one.’
‘I’ve always thought this place could do with a mural,’ Debbie said and Nell looked at the long side wall of the café with its Morse code of scuffs and dints. ‘Don’t you think so, Little Wing?’
Nell laughed. ‘My name is actually Neilina. I think it means “cloud champion”.’
Debbie raised her eyebrow at Nell. ‘So we’ll be ordering a new apron, then?’
Nell shook her head and traced the embroidered name on hers. ‘IamNell,’ she said. ‘To everyone. And I always have been.’
‘And tell me more about this Dougal bloke?’
‘Douglas,’ Nell said. ‘Dougie, really.’
Debbie knew his name was Douglas but she just wanted to double-check on the faint rise of colour to Nell’s cheeks, the ping of light in her eyes.
Yes. It was there.
How many times had Nell sat in her car in this car park, looking at the building that held her mother, steeling herself for the unpredictability of her visit? She’d lost count. She’d never been able to simply skip out of her car, wave blithely to whomever was on reception and take the stairs two at a time to be welcomed by her mum with open arms and intelligible conversation. There were times when they gamely chatted – but over two disparate conversations. There were times when they embraced – but neither felt sure who was in the other’s arms. Today, though, as Nell gazed beyond her windscreen at the trees softening the angles of the redbrick block, at the rose bushes planted sympathetically to raise a smile and an ooh for anyone walking in or out, she sensed something new weaving through her usual trepidation. It was a gentle emotion, a softly spoken one, but she wasn’t quite sure which. It made leaving the car and heading for the doors less onerous. Once inside, the staircase didn’t seem so steep, the corridor not so cold. It was an odd sensation but a welcome one.
